darkSpyro

toysrus had many problems throughout the year. People used to say it's the sears but for kids.
But I would compare it to Kmart because every single one i've gone in has been filthy and seemed uncleaned for many years. This seemed to be a very common complaint and yet they never seem to fix it in the stores.
Another as been said often is the question why they are at times higher then retail price? The online site always seems to have some sorta error to it.

Anyhow they are only closing one toysrus in my area.

TIL that there's a super hero called Fruit Boy that got rejected from a main team because his only power is to make fruits ripe. Funny how that sounded ridiculous in that universe, but Camo's entire power is that but amplified.

Quote: Drawdler

Tbh, I think if we have a "Sky7" next year it's going to be a soft reboot tie-in to Academy
Otherwise the series will prolly be rebooted when '10s nostalgia kicks in

Both options are unpleasant for me...

Quote: Bifrost

TIL that there's a super hero called Fruit Boy that got rejected from a main team because his only power is to make fruits ripe. Funny how that sounded ridiculous in that universe, but Camo's entire power is that but amplified.

Camo grows things 'till they explode, as well as he shoots beams of solar energy, plus he can heal himself. Those are pretty nice combat skills! Growing plants isn't enough. In such case, Fruit Boy may be compared with Food Fight.

I just noticed I posted it here instead of GD, whoops.

That is true, though Food Fight's power isn't quite explained. Camo entered the team by making melon so ripe it exploded, which in hindsight should've been pretty painful for Eon.

I will resume this discussion, given recent news from Activision and the recent Skylanders games, plus the additional evidence that they declined.

One such reason was the sales of certain games, others were the rise of Battle Royale, gimmicks, and possibly even Mobile.

Hey... what about "Skylanders Battle Royale"? Actually I shouldn't give Acti ideas.

Quote: Buchi

Hey... what about "Skylanders Battle Royale"?

I think you meant Blackout from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, but the main point is that Activision attempted admonition upon the Skylanders series, and the results are definitely bad. Hopefully, Rings of Heroes does well on Mobile, because they had lost their core.

I'll tell you what went wrong with Skylanders: people stopped buying them.

Quote: ThunderEgg

I'll tell you what went wrong with Skylanders: people stopped buying them.

Probably because the franchise went to ****.

Not to mention the original developer, Toys For Bob, wanting to be sold off and become independent in part by Activision's liberal culture.

That is also what maybe called 'Yellow Media,' if confirmed.

Quote: Buchi

Quote: ThunderEgg

I'll tell you what went wrong with Skylanders: people stopped buying them.

Probably because the franchise went to ****.

Yeah. Although the yearly releases were likely a good sounding marketing move, it did affect the quality of the product. Even when they switched developers every few games, I started being able to tell things were getting more and more rushed. I also began to grow out of the target audience...

Toys to Life was little more than a trend that quickly turned old. If done well it could have been the innovation Acti was hoping for, but it wasn't, and the whole franchise crashed and burned with Superchargers.

In contrast, Activision might had been greedy and lost about the Skylanders series' future, but they were neither dumb or operose means.

Quote: AlexanderGilman

I will resume this discussion, given recent news from Activision and the recent Skylanders games, plus the additional evidence that they declined.

One such reason was the sales of certain games, others were the rise of Battle Royale, gimmicks, and possibly even Mobile.

Sorry, what recent news from Activision?

The recent, considerately bad news that involves Activision, and related business around:

*https://investorplace.com/2018...e-stock-to-buy/
*https://www.pcgamesn.com/leisu...ce-code-auction
*https://www.fool.com/investing...-in-novemb.aspx
*https://arstechnica.com/gaming...rs-in-the-cold/

Although they are not related to Skylanders, they show their real issues, but you decide that.

About the last link: the originals didn't have subtitles for the cut scenes (at least from my memory). While later games like TLOS did get them, I haven't heard many other people talking about this for the PS1 games. Of course it's super important to be as inclusive as possible. No subtitles is a not a problem that I immediately think of, however.

Please keep in mind, I know little about the people who would be using subtitles. I'm assuming they would be helpful for the deaf or for people who speak a different language. For these people, I am sure it is a MASSIVE deal. I just don't understand that as an issue because I'm not in that position. I think many people may be in a similar boat as I, so I don't see that affecting sales in a significant way.

Quote: ThunderEgg

About the last link: the originals didn't have subtitles for the cut scenes (at least from my memory). While later games like TLOS did get them, I haven't heard many other people talking about this for the PS1 games. Of course it's super important to be as inclusive as possible. No subtitles is a not a problem that I immediately think of, however.

Spyro's Adventure and Giants, in addition to others by Toys For Bob, did not have subtitles, while SWAP Force and SuperChargers, developed by Vicarious Visions, did. Subtitles are useful to clarify what a character is saying, and that helps most people be better aware. If there are none available, then the game becomes difficult.

Games started becoming more and more weird with Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions clearly wanting to make more money rather than bringing more entertainment to the audience. I haven’t played imaginators due to me not liking superchargers because it went from Skylanders to Mario kart

Quote: Skylander3112

Games started becoming more and more weird with Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions clearly wanting to make more money rather than bringing more entertainment to the audience. I haven’t played imaginators due to me not liking superchargers because it went from Skylanders to Mario kart

Agree with the Mario Kart comment.

Imaginators was a way more fun gimmick than I thought it would be, but the game itself is really, really average in hindsight. I've played through the first 4 games a number of times and whilst I am a huge TFB fan and still prefer the original game to any of the others, I found myself liking Swap Force more than I initially did when replaying it.

But I've recently tried to replay Imaginators and I've found it really hard to get into. I still put it ahead of Skylanders Mario Kart but those two are way behind the rest in my opinion.

Quote: Skylander3112

Games started becoming more and more weird with Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions clearly wanting to make more money rather than bringing more entertainment to the audience. I haven’t played imaginators due to me not liking superchargers because it went from Skylanders to Mario kart

Activision is the one pushing the things to make a lot of easy money, not the developers...

Quote: Halvmorke

Quote: Skylander3112

Games started becoming more and more weird with Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions clearly wanting to make more money rather than bringing more entertainment to the audience. I haven’t played imaginators due to me not liking superchargers because it went from Skylanders to Mario kart

Activision is the one pushing the things to make a lot of easy money, not the developers...

I would argue that the developers play some role in this, as they probably get a good cut of funds from the games.

And they're also the ones completing the games in under two years--under one in Giants' case. Face it, Activision is the likely culprit in the largest issues that STT, SSC and SI had, namely the Traptanium Elemental Gates, the extreme focus on the Vehicles and many of the flaws in Imaginators (lack of reset button for CC's, stock music for soundtrack and maybe the weak story).


Honestly, Superchargers gets more flak than it deserves. Yeah, it focused too much on the vehicles, and the figure quality was not up to par compared to the prior games or even Imaginators, but at least it had a quality story and a nice, original soundtrack--two things that Imaginators sorely lacks. And it had all the Portal Master powers, which were a brilliant expansion to the formula that Swap Force established. Honestly, it would be the ideal game to play if it had a proper battle arena, like what Swap Force had to offer.

And yeah, I know that's an unpopular opinion. At least I was excited to replay that game like all the others before it, unlike Imaginators, which I still have to push on to complete Nightmare mode on my Switch and get the Swap Force upgraded again--neither of which I'd call 'fun' compared to zooming around on the Hot Streak for the umpteenth time.

I'm glad to know there's some redeeming qualities in SuperChargers!

I don't hear much discussion about this.

Superchargers is my second favorite

All of the discussion I hear about SC is largely negative. I'm indifferent about SC, honestly, but I can relate to being a fan of a Spyro game that many others in our community dislike.

It maybe noted that the genre of Skylanders, Toys-To-Life, was trending during the mid-2010s, with mobile games by the early-2010s, and Battle Royale predicted to trend throughout the late-2010s. It's when there was peak competition.

I agree partly with Zookinator on the point of the storyline although I found the whole 'rift engine' thing ridiculous and unnecessary. SC actually had some fantastic chapters. Great exploration of lore. Just a shame the whole vehicle heavy focus.

As much as I like Trap Team, I can't help but agree. There are many aspects I love about it, such as its soundtrack, the story, and the level asethetics, and especially the boss fights (Pepper Jack and Kaos especially!), it feels rathre slow, and it clearly didn't have enough time in development.

One of the clear indicators to me is how they handled the Villain timers. As some might know, the game initially gave the villains health bars, but since the test group of kids were playing mostly with them and not with the Skylanders, the developers thought to change that. I don't think this change was fully implemented, as the Villains have lines of dialogue when their timers are too low for them to be called in that they can't return for the rest of the level, and the entire concept of the Villain Stashes seems built around the fact that all your villains could be defeated, and so you might have to return to be able to open them.

Then there's the obvious lack of character-specific challenges (Ranks), poor arenas and severe balance issues across the board. TT was not balanced well at all ompared to its predecessors or even Superchargers. I loved the creativity and aesthetics behind it, but it just needed more development time for it to be truly great. The same can be said for Superchargers and Imaginators as well.

And yes, while Giants was clearly rushed given its short length and lack of new figures--not to mention having a lower quality story than SSA--it felt like a true expansion to the series rather than completely reshaping it (SSF). I wouldn't tell someone to play Giants before SSA because you need to play both to have the full experience. Giants only added on to SSA, and while Swap Force did the same, it drastically changed it in asethetics, gameplay and tone.

Either way, I'd say that all games in the series are worth a play, no matter their flaws, but if I had to choose one not to recommend, it would be Imaginators for it not having the same heart as any of the other games and obviously focusing on the microtransactions more than the others--alongside the terrible soundtrack and story.

By the way, how many years now has it been without a new Skylanders game? Three?

Imaginators came out in 2016 so it's only been two but it feels like more.

I've been saving Lost Imaginite Mines since then. On Christmas day, after everyone has gone to bed I will load it up and play what I fear will be the last new Skylanders console level I'm ever going to play. I hope I'm wrong but I don't ever see them releasing characters again. I have a faint hope that one day they'll release another console game with DLC but I think that's years off.

But I also have the four 3DS games to play so it's not all bad.

I'd honestly prefer it if they release a new game without figures or DLC. Although I now realize that would take away the main concept of what Skylanders was, I still think the franchise could have potential without the idea of buying characters - especially with the characters like they are, there's little difference between each of the 100+ characters we currently have besides their attacks (which even then can be quite similar).

But knowing Activision they'll never give up any chance to milk their games. If Skylanders continues then it's guaranteed to just be another round of Acti milking a cash cow.

Can't see any retail stores wanting to stock the figures again and given how quickly they have lost value I doubt that the general public would buy them. I would just like to see more console games. Ring Of Fire is of no interest to me personally. A dungeon crawler console game would be my personal preference. But with the full roster available as DLC. That's just me personally.

The only way I could see Skylanders come back is if was built mainly around digital figures with a digital storefront, with physical as an optional thing that would end up being poorly stocked at stores.

The toys made the game special. Delivering digital characters would lessen the experience (it felt cheap to me when they did it on the Trap Team and in 3DS). I'd be fine with a game only release, but that wouldn't be financially viable for them as all their money was in the toys. Checkmate? I guarantee it will be resurrected. It will likely fail as Guitar Hero and other games got rebooted...but if they bring something truly inspirational it might be a modest success. Still loved swapping--ultimate gimmick.

Merry Christmas all! First post by me in a long time.

Yeah we all knew when the numbers doubled every game it was only a matter of time. Should've kept it reasonable....but alas that did not happen.

Quote: TakeYourLemons

The toys made the game special.

Tell me about it! Some of them had really cool designs.

So, how could the toys themselves have to do with the Skylanders' decline? From what we produced on the discussion so far, that depends on the context of how they were sold, as the OP amounted on sales. Remember, Activision is the accused company for their greediness and losing core of the series. Here is some more news:

*https://nmsunews.com/2018/12/2...ive-valuations/
*https://seekingalpha.com/artic...vision-blizzard
*https://investorplace.com/2018...nd-from-plunge/

At this point, they risk being acquired. That is especially once the Federal Government shuts down tonight.

Too much, too fast.

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About the villain health bars in TT- dude, I knew, are you doubting how much I know about this series? I was a mod on a Skylanders site and even wrote articles there. I've been here, on some account or another, for nine years. X'D (although that's more depressing than anything because I hate this site nowadays... it's just the only semi-living Skylanders community, and sometimes ranting about the series to just my friends isn't enough, we tend to go over similar points. I wish GhostRoaster had kept a cult clique, my memories of that site are amazing and it was honestly a huge part of my personal growth.)

I joined the site during Swap-Force’s pre-release, which was about six years ago now—and I was barely in high school at that point. I don’t have the greatest memory of who was active then, so sorry if I bring up things you are already aware about. I never meant to question your knowledge of the series.

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I feel the health bars would have been very imbalanced as well. I think the timers are a good idea to make villains feel more separate as well, and they would lose personality with just health bars. But there's the classic problem of then they become meat shields.

Then comes the question of how it should be approached. I’m not sure they could have done it any other way, so if we wanted to have the ‘swap with alternate character’ mechanic, what would have been better?

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It honestly baffles me how TFB did such a terrible job balancing TT and the Senseis were balanced so well- I can't help but wonder if VV lent them a hand there. After all, SF is clearly the most balanced entry... but then SC and TWI are both still too easy. The balance on Cortex and Crash suggests perhaps VV only balanced them, because they're clearly the weakest Senseis. But otherwise, the Sensei balance is way too consistent to have been a fluke, and TFB's balance wasn't nearly that good in any of their other entries. I'm absolutely baffled. I wish we had way more info on SI's development in general, because we pretty much have nothing (unless something came out in the last year and I missed it, don't lurk these forums tbh), and I feel it would put a hell of a lot into perspective. Plus it's the last game we actually got, and would have been nice to know more about how things were winding down.

I will never deny that TT was a completely imbalanced game. That is really my main criticism for it, alongside the lack of (good) post-game content and the Traptanium Elemental Gates. And I can somewhat agree on the balance of SF being at least better than other entries. I’ve been meaning to replay the series to gain some perspective of how it evolved over the years, but I haven’t gotten around to it.
Sidenote: A really good way to do that is to save your Skylanders on the Switch version of Imaginators and reset them, then restore them when you’re done. Doesn’t work for Swap Force character, but there’s always the backup tool for that.

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I SWEAR this isn't my imagination... I'm playing SC on TABLET whenever I go back to it these days, and that's a much wonkier format, but I still find it much easier than any other entry besides SA. SC is too, too easy. It weakens the game, and the combat was already weaker than it needs to be because of the stupid mistake to add hitstopping to eeeeeeverything (thank goodness this was reverted in SI, but what a shame the SCs were still cursed with it). As well as weak enemy variety and those enemies not really hitting the mark. And there's already too little combat. Man.

I liked what combat there was in SC, but I will agree there wasn’t enough of it. Sure, there’s the vehicle combat, but with only—at most—nine vehicles to use during a section, it can get stale pretty quickly. Again, I’ll want to replay it, and I wish SC released on Android so I could play it on my phone—if they didn’t remove it from the app store anyway, but still.

As for the difficulty…yeah, it was pretty easy. I died during the vehicle sections most of the time even on Nightmare. I appreciated it more for the fluidity of the combat itself rather than the difficulty; it just felt good to play through the game with characters like Lava Lance Eruptor or Hammer Slam Bowser. The attacks for the Superchargers were really well-designed, and the only real fault is the hitstop and the difficulty of their game of origin. Shame that the balance of SI made it difficult to use any character but a Sensei or Imaginator in even Hard mode.

[Continued on next post]

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The thing with the vehicles isn't just lel interrupt muh onfoot- it means levels were split between them and onfoot, and THEN ON TOP OF THAT onfoot was torn between combat and platforming, and the platforming was never very good in Skylanders (and plays the same with everyone e_e) but they still put more in and unless they made levels longer (which SF got criticised for, imo undeservingly, so they probably wouldn't) then they just couldn't develop combat as much... and they didn't. It doesn't go far enough, and the platforming can be a nice breakup (see: SF) but not when there's that much and it's that uninteresting and between weaker action... I just, I just feel you can see signs they could have gone all the way if they had the resources or confidence or something more, VV can do amazing stuff when their head is on right, but most of the game doesn't go as far as it should.

I never really replayed SF because of the weaker story and the overall length of the game; it is a beast when it comes to content, and it took me till about Trap Team’s release to really finish everything. And part of that has to do with the crazy long levels that SF had. Honestly, the games probably would have fared better if they didn’t introduce jumping into the equation so it wouldn’t have had to take as long to make the levels. I’m not sure if that would’ve been the case, but that’s just my assumption.

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And what the hell with the microtransactions comment though? I feel like someone answered this for me, so sorry if so- but I repeatedly hear this complaint and unless people mean the inability to reset Crystals (which IS absolutely stupid, but at least can be averted), I think it's just wrong. The game is extremely generous with Chests. And the microtransactions do not exist on Switch. You get most items in one playthrough, and just spend some hours with two or three characters in postgame and I think you naturally finish them off.

Let's also not forget the disaster that was the DLC vehicle mods in SC- which never got enough criticism- either ridiculous grinding for Gearbits or buy those Gearbit packs. AND these are now completely inaccessible (unless you're matteo the hack man...?). Which is tragic. They were actually a fun, if not really interesting, bonus. Much needed for personalising vehicles, which were way too limited in customisation, and felt like generic Magic Items rather than your own vehicles. And that was far worse balanced than the Chests in SI.

At the time of posting, I honestly forgot about the vehicle mods. And I agree, those are worse than anything SI throws at you (I should know, I grinded gearbits with the Shield Striker in the introductory sequence). The inability to reset crystals is wrong, but at least they can be reset with SSA 3DS (which I helped inform others about, if I remember right, but I know that someone else discovered it could rest traps before I did). And while I agree that it is good that the Switch version got rid of DLC items, it also got rid of the racing mode, rendering the vehicles useless outside of granting bonus items.

Although, come to think of it, I don’t mind. They absolutely destroyed the vehicle balance in SI, making it so you can spin out in no more than four shots. I don’t want to do those challenges again, thank you.

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I'm sorry but Giants just has the worst levels along with TT. I never want to replay most of them. I have to force myself through most of them. I never replay the whole game because of it. I only ever really look forward to chapters 8/11/12/13 (and still, all of those could be better, although ch8 is definitely the best). The rest are drags, or too basic to replay (looking at ch1, which is really chill and nice, but terrible replay material). But I also find myself without stuff to do besides Heroics because of it. It sucks because the additions to legacy characters, like I said, are really good. I STILL miss Heroics. SF Quests still suck. As do SC Quests.

I will admit, the first few chapters of TT are pretty boring, and I tend to drop another playthrough around Chapter 5 or 6. As for Giants, I just haven’t tried picking it up again since I played through it dozens of times to complete all the Quests. And despite what I may say about HCs being good content, I never liked the bonuses they gave me since they made characters almost overly powerful—especially the Giants if you boost them all the way up on speed. Plus, the animations were never really designed for that, so it isn’t aesthetically pleasing either.

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I'm glad to hear you don't totally hate SI/consider it worthless though zookinator but still kinda feel like you were calling it out... meh. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Doesn't matter.
I know this is also a random time to ask but do you have a Discord? I know I've been piss sometimes. Right now I'm going through the worst week of this year, so far, so I'm not really available at this moment. But if you do maybe we can chat, I'd honestly like to try.

I wouldn’t mind chatting through Discord either. We can organize a time over PM. I wasn’t in the best mood either when I was writing that post, as I was having to replay SI for the fifth time on my Switch—and that included getting all the gold for my Swap Force Skylanders. I just had to vent my frustrations for the game—especially for Chapter 3. By far my least favorite chapter due to its ungodly length, especially in the final sequence.

Honestly, at this point, I figure just releasing either a remake of Spyro's Adventure or at least a new game that scraps all past Skylanders and starts with fresh new faces is probably their best bet.

Decided to pop back in after a while to see what was going on, reading through this has been interesting with hindsight.

I still have my Skylanders shrine, but I've moved it to the playroom for my kids to play with, my son (8) has moved on entirely to different games, though he occasionally will que up Imaginators on the Switch, he really enjoys his custom characters.

So this weekend I had the urge to play Skylanders, I saw a couple figures in the playroom and had flashbacks. And that's when I asked myself "why things fell apart". I honestly can't point to a single issue as the culprit, it was a multitude. There are things that the adult in me would crucify, namely the storyline(s), but the real sin are the issues the gamer in me found, and I don't think its overly complex.

The game was too expensive for what it was.

You could port ANY of the Skylander games to a mobile device, and using on screen buttons, not lose a step, it was really a mobile game, dressed up as an AAA title. Unlike modern mobile games though, there was no "unlock" with play or use real money to skip the grind, it was flat out paywalled. Not only that, but the paywall was HIGH. 4-6 characters could buy you a brand new game. So you go ot the store, spend an exuberant amount of money, go home to play, and the character you spent $15 on is nothing but a polygon swap of another character - or worse, simply not fun. Same goes for the gimmicks (mostly SC), where purchasing one of the vehicles may look cool, but controlling them in game was infuriating and frustrating, and frankly - so inconsequential to the "fun" that it left a bad taste in my wallet.

Here I am, several years after the fact, and all I can think about his how much money I wasted, and how bad some of the characters were to play as. My daughter (4) recognizes the Disney characters, so she plays with the DI figures all the time (poor broken lightsabers everywhere).
- Unreall

One thing i felt like the series needed is stuff like random enemy ambushes and rng dungeons because one of the problems with the series imo was that they introduced so many characters but they weren't enough levels/other content to use all of the characters that came out